VEN JEWS interested in developing a personal spirituality often find it difficult to talk about God. Come get comfortable with the subject and clarify your own perspective by exploring a variety of ways of thinking about, imagining and communicating with God. What different conceptions of God emerge from new Jewish liturgies? Is belief in a personal God the only possible foundation for meaningful prayer? On what basis dare one say anything about God?

DR. JUDITH PLASKOW is professor of religious studies at Manhattan College and a Jewish feminist theologian who has been teaching, writing and speaking about Jewish feminism and women’s studies in religion for more than 40 years. Co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, she is author or editor of several works in feminist theology, including Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism From a Feminist Perspective and The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism and Sexual Ethics 1972-2003.

T IS A WELL-KNOWN FACT that Christianity incorporated the Hebrew Bible into its tradition with the stories, images and symbols contained in its pages. Less known is that the ongoing exchange between the artistic traditions of Judaism and Christianity actually went both ways. Learn how Christian artists borrowed from the existing Jewish tradition and how Jewish artists sometimes used Christian models for artistic embellishment in architecture and books, using examples from early centuries of the Common Era, medieval Europe and today.

Note: This seminar will include a visit to the Main Sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El to explore its own unexpected cultural exchanges.

DR. ENA HELLER is director of MOBiA (Museum of Biblical Art) in New York City. Dr. Heller also has taught art history at the College of the Holy Cross and worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was the recipient of the American Academy of Religion’s Religion and the Arts award for 2010.

DR. PATRICIA PONGRACZ is director of curatorial affairs at MOBiA. She has taught at the College of Saint Elizabeth and at Bethel University’s New York Center for Arts and Media Studies and has lectured at Parsons, the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, The Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ELKA DEITSCH is the senior curator of the Herbert & Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica at Temple Emanu-El. She has created numerous exhibitions and catalogs on a wide range of subjects related to Jewish history, art and culture.

ANT TO FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE in the prayer service but feel inhibited because you can’t read Hebrew? Have you been meaning to learn the language but somehow never seemed to have the time? This unique seminar is perfect for you. Come for an intensive Hebrew marathon that will leave you wanting more. Learn the letters and vowels, and by the end of the day you will be reading Hebrew.

MICHAL NACHMANY is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has taught liturgical, biblical and modern Hebrew for more than 20 years at synagogues and other institutions throughout New York City.

VERYWHERE I GO, I am going to Jerusalem,” said Rav Nachman of Breslav. For many, Jerusalem is the holiest place in the world, locus of religious and spiritual yearnings. For others, it is the emblem of idolatry — elevating a piece of land to sacred status. Is Jerusalem the physical beloved City, or is it the ephemeral place where we find God/Spirit, wherever we might be? According to the Chasidic Masters, the answer is both. Discover their teachings and grapple with notions of exile and redemption, as we delve into an exploration of how space is made holy and how we might discover “holy ground.”

RABBI DAVID INGBER is the founder and spiritual director of Romemu on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He is a sought-after national and international leader and educator because of his unique, open-hearted and embodied approach to Jewish teaching. He studied philosophy and psychology at NYU and has learned at a wide range of yeshivot in Jerusalem and New York, including Yeshivat Chovovei Torah. He received his s’michah from Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in 2004.